


The Ghoul Inside and Other Scary Stories

by saezutte



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Fairy Tales, Multi, Threesomes, Urban Legends, vengeance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 11:53:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2347529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saezutte/pseuds/saezutte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, a prince among ghouls set out on a journey to find his lost beloved prey. Instead he found a witch, who promised she could help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghoul Inside and Other Scary Stories

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through chapter 143. I marked this Explicit but sex doesn't happen in my outline until part 4. Thanks to [Hillary](http://archiveofourown.org/users/salvage) for looking over part 1!

There’s a famous case of a ghoul in the 17th Ward (or was it the 10th? the 3rd?) One day, a human woman was watching her daughter play at an amusement park. She sat to rest for a moment but when she looked up, her daughter was gone. Frantic, she looked all around but didn’t see her anywhere. She called out her name: “Yoshiko!” (or Aya or Miho or Saya) but there was no response. She’d been near the coin lockers (or the merry-go-round or the ice cream truck or—) just a moment ago, hadn’t she? When she looked, there was only a man carrying his young son from the restroom. At first she felt a thrill of recognition, thinking the child was her daughter, but then no, his hair was much too short. But wait— the shoes the boy was wearing— they were bright red with flowers (or yellow with hearts or blue with stars.) They were her daughter’s shoes! She chased after him, yelling, and nearby CCG patrol officers were able to intervene.

The woman recovered her daughter; the ghoul had cut her hair in the bathroom, but had overlooked the shoes. He was connected to the disappearances of several area children, presumed dead. Child is a delicacy for ghouls, everyone knows that, and he was selling the organs, they say, to a ghoul restaurant or to ghoul street gangs or to the Ghoul King whom everyone knows rules the Ghoul Underworld with an iron fist from his throne of skulls.

Everyone knows the story is true and could happen to you, so it doesn’t matter that it doesn’t match, exactly, any of the arrest records in the big CCG filing cabinets. Humans who’ve heard it know never to look away from their children. Ghouls who’ve heard it know never to get too clever with their schemes: just to run, to kill, to eat, that’s all a ghoul needs and any ghoul who tries to make the hunt more complicated than that? Well, he’ll get what he deserves in the end.

* * *

That insufferable ingrate Nishio left after a while and Tsukiyama had a chance to think.

His body had healed from the beating Kaneki had given him (the last thing he would ever get from Kaneki, whispered a lying liar voice in the back of his mind) but his heart — non, non, that was beyond the regenerative powers of ghoul biology. No novel had prepared him for the sharp stab of heartbreak’s knife through his chest.

Kaneki had left him to go to his death. Kaneki was gone now, dead for sure, according to disgusting sewer rat Nishio Nishiki.

The evening wind was cool on the roof but Tsukiyama thought it almost warm compared to how cold he felt inside.

But Tsukiyama Shuu had never had anything denied to him in his life and he wasn’t planning on starting now. Having his prey killed by someone before he could take a bite was so disgustingly common that he refused to believe it could happen to him. He wouldn’t believe it until he held Kaneki’s dead body in his arms.

Would he taste him then, even after the meat had been left to spoil? When his careful planning had been disrupted by some dirty CCG scum who had no appreciation for Kaneki’s delicate taste? Tsukiyama knew he would eat Kaneki no matter how much the body had rotted. Eating him was his duty, as Kaneki’s friend and bodyguard. It was his punishment, for failing to stop him and for failing to kill him first.

But for now, until that precious meat was in his mouth, Tsukiyama had to believe there was a chance Kaneki was still alive, still his for the kill.  

He pulled himself up, wiped the dust off his clothes and the tears from his face. The city stretched out in front of him, a labyrinth of roofs and clotheslines and dark alleys and in one of them was his Kaneki-kun.

* * *

Tsukiyama jumped down from the fence that surrounded the storage facility. Typically he’d waltz right in through the front door — it's best to hide in plain sight — but he wasn’t sure if the curfew and evacuation rules had been lifted from this area yet. He didn't see or smell anyone around but it was dark and the whole place stank of garbage and dirt after the rain.

His family’s unique public position meant they had to prepare for any eventuality, which meant, among other things, putting stores of food and other supplies in various places for use in emergency. He’d been forced to memorize the locations of all of them at age seven and this one was the closest he could remember: a storage unit rented and maintained by a family employee around the border of the 20th and 14th wards. It wasn't much, but it would have food and a change of clothing, enough so that he'd look less suspicious when daylight came.   

He found the container and typed the code into the keypad. He made a mental note to insist on something more secure — surely they could put in a retina scanner or similar, they weren't paupers — and slipped inside.

Inside, there was a freezer that was fortunately still running and full of frozen meat and a trunk of dried meats, coffees, clothing, and cash. Tsukiyama usually scoffed at the idea of eating such paltry fare but he wasn't sure how much time he'd have to spare for hunting as he regrouped to prepare to go after Kaneki.

And, honestly, he was starving and exhausted; he ripped into one of the frozen steaks without thinking. Might as well be eating beef for how disgusting it was, but he could feel energy returning to his limbs. He packed a backpack he found in the trunk with some supplies.

He looked around; there was nothing in here besides the freezer and the trunk. Could he spend the night in the container? He considered it but staying in one place in the 20th Ward was a risk; it was crawling with CCG and if any ghouls were alive, they were probably part of the annoying Anteiku crowd. The only benefit to being in the 20th Ward right now was that it was definitely where Kaneki had been last and he wasn't going to find him shut up in a storage unit. He locked the container and threw the backpack onto one shoulder.

The backpack was hideous; he hoped no one who knew him from school saw him like this. But with all the recent ado around the 20th Ward, he wasn't sure when he'd be able to make it back to a Tsukiyama property, so it was best to be prepared, even if his fashionable standards suffered.

Outside again, he sniffed the air to check for intruders. There was the scent of something familiar. He took a few steps and sniffed again, just to make sure. It was stronger in this direction, he noticed, and then something within him split open, half hope and half disbelief. He placed the scent immediately, that twisting complexity, that spice that had only become more enticing the further he was from tasting it. But it couldn’t be— so soon— Tsukiyama’s luck, maybe, was at last turning around.

Because drifting through the storage center was the unmistakable scent of Kaneki Ken.

Catching a particular scent and following it was damn near impossible in a city of 36 million people, but if any ghoul in Tokyo could pull it off, it was Tsukiyama searching for his chosen prey.  

He took off running, leaping up to the side of one of the storage containers on turns and barely pausing to decide which direction to go as he moved. The pounding of his feet echoed through the darkness but he couldn't stop to consider that he might be attracting attention; if his instincts were right, this could all be over tonight. He could be safe in his apartment with Kaneki by tomorrow.

He finally stopped in front of another storage container. Moving around it, he could tell the smell was coming from inside.

Would it be just his body, preserved here for unknown reasons? Or would it be Kaneki alive and recovering, imprisoned by some nefarious trick?

Could the universe finally be smiling on Tsukiyama Shuu?

The container was closed with a simple padlock; he released his kagune without a thought and sliced through it. His kakugan darkened and his mouth watered as he pulled the lock free and slid open the door with a clang.

Looking inside, he felt again the desperate grief he'd felt for the first time on the roof as Kaneki walked away from him. The scent wasn't Kaneki, though Tsukiyama could see how he had made that mistake, in his weakness amidst all the scents of the city.

Inside the container, chained and in rags, was Kamishiro Rize. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first section is adapted from an urban legend I found [here](http://kowaihanashi.com/toshidensetunokowaihanashi3.html).


End file.
